EDITORIAL - Time to address the issues we don’t see

There is now a move to establish a 24-hour hotline for people who are dealing with mental issues during this pandemic.

According to Cebu City Councilor Alvin Dizon, people who are suffering from these problems should be able to contact someone who can help them.

“People’s mental health should receive all the support of the city government since it is as important as physical health and developing mechanisms that would help alleviate the people’s burden during these difficult times is of vital importance,” Councilor Dizon was quoted as saying in a story in this newspaper.

It is good that this issue is now being addressed. It is easy to overlook how much this pandemic and the resulting events is taking a toll on one’s mental health. It is also an issue many of us are not as willing to talk about as others.

The immediate and most visible concern of everyone these days is how the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions affect our earning capacity and our means to feed our families and take care of our loved ones, usually we don’t look at how it is also wreaking havoc on our mental well-being.

Being forced to stay at home, not being able to go out and do the things we love, not being able to see our family and friends, not being able to go to school, not being able to travel, not to mention that overall feeling of gloom and doom not knowing when --or if-- all this will end, does take its silent toll on our psyche.

And while ayuda and other forms of handouts immediate address our physical and material needs, it will take more to repair us mentally.

We cannot blame the national government for a lack of a concerted effort in this regard; it currently has its hands full trying to balance between re-opening the economy and safeguarding health of the public, and sometimes it can’t seem to tell which way is up. So it may be ideal if local government units assume this responsibility at this time.

It’s time to address the issues we don’t readily see.